Equipment



I am living in Kanagawa-prefecture, a neighboring area of Tokyo, Japan.
The Milky Way and stars below the fourth magnitude are invisible in this area
because of heavy light pollution from the metropolitan Tokyo.
Although the sky condition is not preferable,
I still enjoy taking images of various galaxies using a cooled CCD camera, ST7-XME.

SBIG ST-7XME&CWF8

You can see a gold shim plate between the two units (ST-7XME and CFW-8a).
This is a brass plate which has been placed
so that a thin filter can be inserted through a slit opened in this plate.
The combination of SBIG red filter plus this thin filter (Fuji SC64, optical acetate film filter) enhances the red HII areas studded in galaxies effectively, as well as vivid blue.→

There has been a difficulty to use ST-7XME in such area with heavy　light pollution: Some undulation tends to appear in background of theimages taken by this CCD.
The undulation is usually weak and unnoticed,
but it becomes pronounced with high background and poor S/N ratio, i.e.,　with the images taken in urban area.
In most of the cases, however, this　undulation can be reduced by Flat Flame process.→


Vixen R200SS

TAKAHASHI FC100





My　daughters　and　I